Page 13 of Unrelenting (Ruthless Temptations #1)

ELEVEN

Lorenzo

“I can’t believe you dragged me away from my woman for this shit,” I grumble as I take my seat next to Damiano in the front row of the church.

Lucia and I were enjoying breakfast together when my brother called and told me to get my ass home, change into a suit and come down here to witness this farce. I’ve never been to such a miserable wedding and, believe me, I’ve been to some fucking awful ones.

In our world, marriages are rarely a love match. It’s not unusual for either the bride or groom to be unwilling and unafraid to let everyone know it.

People joke about shotgun weddings, but I’ve seen a bride being marched down the aisle at gunpoint by her groom’s men and forced to recite her vows.

The tragedy of this particular wedding is that it doesn’t need to be like this. Matteo and Giulia are clearly perfect for one another. They’ve been friends forever, and it’s obvious there’s genuine love between them, even if they don’t see it right now.

Matteo is moving things along faster than Giulia is comfortable with simply because he’s scared.

When the young boy who’s been skulking around Gabriele’s villa spoke to Giulia at La Stanza Rosso last night, Matteo panicked.

He decided she’d be safer if he bound her to him. He may be right, but he hasn’t convinced Giulia of that.

There are several of our men stationed at the back of the church. I wish they weren’t here to witness this sad spectacle.

As I watch the bride and groom exchanging vows, it’s obvious Giulia is holding back tears. She’s not just mad at the situation, she’s heartbroken.

It makes me feel like an asshole for being the one to walk her down the aisle. I volunteered to do it because I thought I could lighten the mood. Boy, was I wrong. The tension in here is suffocating.

“Violetta fucked up last night,” Damiano murmurs as the priest gallops through the ceremony, clearly terrified of my cousin.

Matteo has already cursed at him once for starting his sermon in Italian. Despite sharing our heritage, Giulia speaks little of the language.

“Yeah, I heard. Where is she?”

“At my place.”

I narrow my eyes. “Where at your place?”

“Downstairs.”

By downstairs, he means in the cells in his basement, but he obviously doesn’t want to admit to holding a woman prisoner while we’re sitting in a church. Like me, my brother isn’t a believer, but he respects the priesthood and the sanctity of the church.

“What are you planning to do with her?”

“Make her my wife.”

My jaw practically hits the floor when I hear that. Damiano hasn’t expressed a desire to marry, and if he had, I’d expect it to be to some Mafia princess whose father he wanted to do business with.

“Her grandfather didn’t think I was good enough for her. Do you think he’d accept you?”

Damiano shoots me a look that says, of course he will. Not that it would put my brother off if the old man did object.

In fact, it would probably make him more determined to claim the girl.

“It’s to your advantage,” Damiano reminds me. “She marries, you get the land.”

“And what does she get?”

Damiano flashes a feral grin. “Me.”

Poor Violetta. I may be relentless in the pursuit of what I want, but Damiano makes me look like a puppy. He’s unapologetically ruthless, and if he has to ride roughshod over this girl’s hopes and dreams to get what he wants, he’ll do it.

“You really want to marry her?” I ask.

“She’s mine.”

“Since when?” I’ve seen him staring at her from time to time, but I thought he only wanted her for a quick fuck.

“Since I decided it.”

His tone shuts down the conversation. I return my attention to the unhappy couple as the priest declares them to be man and wife and tells Matteo to kiss his bride.

As Matteo claims his prize, Giulia’s body language is stiff. If I was my cousin, I’d sleep with one eye open for the foreseeable future. Giulia grew up in a Mafia family. I’m sure she knows where to get hold of a gun.

In my peripheral vision, I catch my cousin Olivia shaking her head. She doesn’t approve of her brother’s actions, but if Matteo’s heavy-handedness has achieved anything, it’s a softening of Olivia’s attitude toward Giulia.

Sitting next to my feisty little cousin, Piotr Reznov appears amused by the proceedings. He turned up with Damiano, which only served to further sour Olivia’s mood.

As Matteo and Giulia turn to walk back along the aisle into what I hope will be a happier future, the squeal of tires outside makes the hairs at the back of my neck stand on end.

Something’s about to go down. I can feel it in my bones. I exchange a look with Piotr, and his expression tells me he also senses something is wrong.

Even before the church doors burst open and men pour in, I’m on my feet, gun drawn. There’s a split second of eerie silence, then all hell breaks loose.

While Matteo shoves Giulia out of the way, Piotr dives for Olivia and pushes her aside. I storm toward the front of the church, shooting several of the assholes who’ve dared to attack during a wedding.

Bullets whizz past me in both directions, taking chunks out of the wooden pews and the stone pillars that hold up the ornate ceiling.

Restitution will have to be made for the damage and the insult. Most of it will be in blood.

The gunfight doesn’t last long. Our assailants bring down a few of our men and the guards Piotr brought with him.

Ultimately, the enemy is outclassed and outnumbered. In the dying moments of the shootout, as I scan the room to check the women are okay, I take a hit to the head.

Staggering forward, I fall to my knees on the stone floor. Fuck! Did someone shoot me? I raise a hand to my head, feeling around for a hole.

“Lorenzo!” Damiano drops down next to me. He pushes my hand out of the way to examine the wound. He sags in relief. “It’s just a graze.”

It may be just a graze, but it hurts like hell. It burns and stings at the same time, and I want to throw up. As I struggle to my feet, Damiano offers me a hand. I let him help me up, then stumble back against the nearest wall.

Taking a moment to catch my breath, I survey the scene before me. Everything happened so fast I can barely process it. One moment we were witnessing a marriage and the next there was chaos.

Several men lie dead, some ours but most the enemy. Piotr and two of his Bratva soldiers stand guard over three men who’re on their knees. I don’t recognize any of them, but one is just a kid, no more than eighteen, perhaps.

“You need to see a doctor?” I motion toward Damiano’s arm, which is hanging loosely at his side. He’s grimacing in pain.

“Nah, I’m good. You?” He gestures toward my head, which is bleeding profusely.

“No, I’ll live.”

The sensible thing would be to go get the wound patched up and rest for a while, but that’s not going to happen.

Though my head is throbbing and blood streams down my face, there are more important things to deal with right now.

These fuckers need to explain who they are and why they dared launch an assault at a wedding. They disturbed us during a private family moment, and I can’t wait to make them pay.

Two hours later

Resting my head back against the chair, I close my eyes and try to tune out Olivia and Piotr’s bickering. I arrived at Gabriele’s villa ten minutes ago and discovered they’d only just got here, despite leaving the church immediately after the shooting.

It seems my little cousin used her feminine charms to persuade Piotr to send Giulia back to New York on his private jet.

Apparently she felt her brother’s new bride needed some space from him. I’d hate to be in her shoes when Matteo finds out what she’s done.

I haven’t the patience for all this drama right now. My head is pounding, and I’m exhausted.

Damiano sent me away while and Matteo continued to torture two of the assholes we captured for information. He said it was because he wanted me to check on the women, but really he’s concerned about my injury.

There’s little chance of my getting the rest I need with my cousin and her prospective husband arguing like they’re already an old married couple.

Today has been shit. Even before the shooting, the wedding was a disaster.

Interrogating the men who attacked us was less gratifying than it would usually be. The youngest of them spilled his secrets way too easily. He was just a kid seeking revenge because the girl he loved was killed.

He thought Matteo was in a relationship with Sofia Montalbano simply because he was standing next to her when she was shot dead.

The idiot went to the Rossi family, not realizing they were the ones who had the girl murdered, and asked them for help in eliminating Matteo.

They were happy to oblige since our family has been trying to wipe out the Rossis in revenge for Sofia’s murder. It’s a fucked- up cycle of murder and vengeance that this eighteen-year got caught up in.

Though I felt sorry for him, I still put a bullet between his eyes. He earned it after all.

“Where the hell do you get off telling me what to do?” Olivia’s voice cuts into my thoughts.

“Olivia!” I warn her. With that tone, she’s going to push Piotr too far. She won’t like the consequences.

“Lorenzo,” she whines. “He can’t talk to me like that.”

Since I didn’t catch what Piotr said to her, I can’t comment.

“Just behave,” I snap, sick of the circus that surrounds my cousins.

Huffing loudly, Olivia gets up and goes to the liquor cabinet. She opens a bottle of eighteen-year-old Scotch. I don’t care if she drinks the house dry, but Piotr objects.

“You sure you should be drinking that?” It’s a rebuke rather than a question.

“Why not?” Olivia demands. “I’ve had a shock.”

“Then make some sweet tea,” I suggest. “And get a fucking grip. It’s not like you’ve never seen violence before.”

Olivia is a Mafia princess, part of the Volante family. Violence follows us all like a foul smell. Even our women are not entirely safe from it.

As a kid, she was almost kidnapped. Her bodyguard had acid thrown in his face. It was traumatising for Olivia and I know that’s not the only brutality she’s witnessed.

“What violence have you seen?” Piotr asks.

That sets Olivia off. She storms from the room, and Piotr goes after her, giving me some much-needed peace.

I close my eyes again and think about Lucia. I can’t wait to see her again, but I need to wait until the thudding in my head stops. She doesn’t need to see me in this state.

The blissful silence doesn’t last long. I’ve barely begun to relax when the front door slams.

“Giulia!” Matteo bellows.

He storms into the room with Damiano close behind.

“Where is she?” Matteo demands. He spins around as Olivia rushes into the room. “Where’s Giulia?”

Olivia looks like a deer caught in the headlights.

“Where is my wife, Livvy?” Matteo takes a step toward her and Piotr moves to stand between them.

Like me, he can tell how close to the edge my cousin is right now.

Normally, I’d say he poses no threat to his sister, but right now Matteo is buzzing with adrenaline after torturing our enemies and he’s looking for an outlet.

Fucking his wife would calm him but since he can’t do that, release may come through lashing out.

I silently observe as they continue arguing. When Matteo lunges for Piotr, who’s trying to justify sending Giulia away, I sit up.

My intervention isn’t needed. Damiano grabs Matteo and hauls him out of the room. It’s pretty badass, considering he can only use one arm at the moment.

“Well, that was fun,” I drawl.

“Asshole!” Olivia snaps at me. “That was horrible. Poor Matteo.”

“Oh, it’s poor Matteo now?” I arch an eyebrow as I mimic her tone. “You weren’t so concerned for him when you were helping his bride to flee from their wedding night. I thought you didn’t even like the girl.”

“She’s not all bad,” Olivia retorts. “And she was really upset about what happened.”

“You don’t think being with the man who loves her would have helped her get over it?” I ask.

To her credit, Olivia looks a little sheepish. Perhaps she realizes she fucked up.

When Damiano comes back into the room alone, he tells us Matteo is going after his wife. It’s what I’d do, what any of the men in this room would do.

Issues between a man and his woman can’t be allowed to fester. He needs to make things right with Giulia before it gets out of hand.

Damiano crosses the room and pours himself a whisky before turning to face us. He looks as weary as I feel.

“What the fuck were you thinking, Piotr? You should never get between a man and his wife.”

“I was thinking Antonio wants his brother back in the States and that if his wife was there he’d follow.”

Damiano laughs humorlessly. “You’re so full of shit. You didn’t do it to please Antonio.”

“No,” Piotr admits. “I did it as a favor to Olivia.”

“A favor in return for what?” I know he’ll expect something in return.

“Dinner.”

I doubt dinner is all he wants from her, but that’s between Piotr and Olivia. Since Antonio has given his blessing to him pursuing her, neither Damiano nor I will interfere.

“Dinner?” Olivia sounds skeptical.

“Tomorrow night,” he confirms, before turning to Damiano. “I’ll let you know where and when.”

“Fine,” Olivia agrees a little too readily. If I was Piotr, I’d expect trouble. “Dinner tomorrow.”

As Damiano shows Piotr out, Olivia sinks down onto the couch with a sigh. She looks at me and purses her lips. “You need to see a doctor.”

“No, I just need a little sleep.”

“You shouldn’t be alone, not with a head injury.”

“She’s right,” Damiano says as he comes back into the room. “Should I call Lucia?”

“No, I don’t want her to see me like this.”

“Then there’s only one option.” My brother comes and grabs my arm. He pulls me to my feet, and I stagger. “You’re coming home with us.”

As much as I’d love to argue, I don’t. My head is throbbing, and I know it will be safer for me to sleep at Damiano’s house tonight.

Hopefully, by morning the worst of this headache will have passed, and I can see Lucia again.